


But Before You Go

by aninconsistentwriter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Difficult Decisions, Dudley tries, Harry Needs a Hug, Nice Dudley Dursley, Petunia tries as well, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aninconsistentwriter/pseuds/aninconsistentwriter
Summary: Harry is so very tired. He wants to sleep for a hundred years. He yearns to never hear the name Voldemort again.But Harry Potter has one last task ahead of him before he can leave the horrors of war behind him.
Relationships: Dudley Dursley & Harry Potter, Petunia Evans Dursley & Harry Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65





	But Before You Go

He had no real wish to do this. He was tired, sore, and he knew that whenever he had a chance to sit down and think the ache in his chest would explode with the grief he’s holding back. But, for all their faults they deserve to be told by someone they actually knew. 

He walked up to the unassuming house, the curtains drawn tight, no hint of life showing and knocked on the door. Dedalus Diggle opened the door and startled at the sight of Harry, clothes torn and covered in grime. He knows he has a cut on his cheek that is covered in dried blood. Harry may be doing his only remaining blood relatives a favor but he isn’t going out of his way to make it easy for them. He wants this over. He wants to sleep for a hundred years. He wants to never have to say the names Voldemort or Tom Riddle again. 

He wants to forget about the forest and what it means. 

He wants to grieve ( _ Remus, Tonks, Fred, Colin, Lavender. Snape _ ).

“Harry,” Dedalus said, “does this mean…” The usually buoyant man looks at him with cautious hope. Harry nods. 

“I’ve come to tell them. Are they up?”

“Yes, yes. We were all just having a quick snack before we went to bed. Come in!” He was grinning, happy and free of a danger that has loomed for so long. Harry both loves and hates him for a moment, the joy coming off him both soothing and like sandpaper on Harry’s war-stretched skin. Harry steps into the hallway and follows to the sitting area where three people that Harry never thought he’d have to see again sit. 

Dudley turned towards him, “Harry?”

“Hey, Dudley.”

“What’s going on? Why are you here?” His cousin looked better than he ever had. He would never be thin but he carried his weight more evenly, it suited him. But Harry could see the stress molded into his brows, the cautious way he looked at Harry. There was a tension in his shoulders that Harry had never seen before and he appreciated for the first time that while Dudley was always on the outskirts of this, he too was just a boy whose life had been ravaged by war and a madman bent on destroying everything. 

“I came to tell you that you can go home. Voldemort is dead”.

They sat in stunned silence, Vernon’s eyes bulged to an uncomfortable level. Finally, Petunia asked in a frailer voice than Harry had ever heard from her, “he’s gone? For real this time?”

Harry thinks of the last time he’d seen her, pale faced and sadness etched into her face. He thinks of the words she had spoken, “ _ you didn’t just lose a mother that night in Godric’s Hollow” _ . He thinks of Snape’s memories and the sharp faced little girl who had responded with anger to being “ordinary” compared to her extraordinary sister. 

The time in hiding had not been as kind to Petunia and Vernon as it had to Dudley. There was grey speckled throughout their hair. Vernon did not wear the weight loss as well as his son, his skin seemed worn out and sallow. Fine lines were folded into his aunts skin, aging her greatly since he had last seen her. 

War and age had not been kind to them and a deep ugly part of Harry felt vindicated by that. 

Harry is running on he-doesn’t-know-how-many-hours without sleep and he can’t deal with this right now. But, for all their awful-ness they were his last living relatives. He would offer this one gift to them. There is a sharp stabbing pain behind his right eye. “For real. He’s dead this time.”

Vernon gives a great “hmph” sound, “well that’s what they said last time and he came back! You lot can’t even follow the rules of death!” There is fear in his eyes. 

Harry looked at his uncle, “I killed him. He’s dead. Believe me or not, I’m not gonna fight with you about this. We kept you safe from him and his followers. You no longer need to be protected. So leave whenever you want and we don’t ever have to see each other again”. 

Dudley and Petunia both inhaled sharply. “Dad, I think we should believe Harry.”

Harry remembers the last words Dudley had spoken to him, the wry warmth that had filled him at the growth his cousin showed at that moment, that odd realization that a cup of tea had been an olive branch in a time that felt so long ago. “ _ I don’t think you’re a waste of space”. _

“I wouldn’t lie to you, not about this”.

Petunia looks at him, her pale eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Harry knows that Vernon probably never realized the danger they were in, the amount of power that Voldemort held and the fate that would befall them if he had ever gotten his hands on them. But Petunia knew. Petunia had a baseline of understanding of exactly how powerful Voldemort was in the Wizarding World. His mother had been a gifted witch. Her sister had been talented, clever, and powerful. For someone to take her down, Petunia would have to understand what they were facing, at least a little bit. 

What her only nephew had been facing.

Harry would not call himself fond of his last remaining blood relatives. There was too much pain, too much anger leftover from years of abuse, lies and betrayal. But for all their faults, he does not wish them harm. He does not wish for them to live in fear. So, before he came here he had come up with an idea for them. A peace offering before he exited their lives forever.

“I have a choice for you to make. I can offer you the choice to forget the wizarding world forever. We can alter your memories so that you wouldn’t remember that people like me exist. I would just become the troublesome nephew you raised, who ran away and you never hear from again. My parents will have actually died in a car accident. You would have raised me and sent me to St. Brutus’. You can move forward with your lives and never fear that magic will interfere in your lives ever again”.

Dudley’s expression is unreadable to Harry.

Vernon had a gleeful look on his face, “for once you are actually useful, boy!” 

Harry turned to look at his aunt. She stared back at him and he wanted nothing more in that moment to scream at her for hiding so much from him. Perhaps, if she had been honest about everything, had told him what his mother was like during her childhood he would have escaped so much pain at the hands of Snape. Maybe it was a fool’s dream, hoping Snape would have not hated him if he had asked him about his mother, spurred on by the keening want to know more about his parents. Would Snape have seen the scared, sad, eleven year old boy he had actually been when he’d first stepped into Hogwarts if Snape had known that Harry would cling to any attachment to his parents possible? 

A sad eleven year old yearning for any scrap of knowledge about his parents… 

No, Snape had spent too long hating his father and Harry looked just like him…

But the pain of having to learn so much about his mother from a dead man’s memories was still freshly burned into Harry’s mind. 

Harry was so tired. 

“What about my memories of Lily?” Petunia asked. 

“Altered. I’ll admit, it’s not my area of expertise. My friend Hermione would be the one doing the Memory Charms. She, uh, has experience in this area. She’s muggle-born, like my mum was. So she has a good grasp on how to alter your memories seamlessly”. 

It didn’t feel right revealing the reason why Hermione was so good at complicated Memory Charms.

Vernon had a conflicted look on his face. Harry could pretty easily figure out his uncle’s issues. On one hand, he’d be subjected to magic being performed on him. But the outcome would mean going back to “normal”. No more strangeness. No more Harry blowing up relatives. No more knowing that the magical world even existed. 

“There is a stipulation. All three of you must agree to it. It’s too risky for only one or two of you to accept and then the other person having to keep the secret for the rest of their lives. While Hermione is good, even the most powerful Memory Charm can be complicated by the slip of a tongue”. Hermione had explained this to him. It’s why she had removed all memory of herself from her parent’s memory and sent them off to Australia. If they had stayed in England, surrounded by physical reminders of Hermione, the charm could have been warped. There could have been issues. There were no guarantees. “You wouldn’t be able to return to Privet Drive. We would arrange for you to have a new home, someplace in a different part of the country. Especially at the beginning, you would need to remove yourself from any reminder that magic exists”. 

He knew that this would be the determining factor. Harry expected that Vernon would want to take the deal. His want to be rid of him, of any reminder of his  _ strangeness _ , would outweigh his distrust of magic. He imagined the fact that while he would consider Hermione to be just as strange as Harry, her muggle upbringing might be a mollifying factor as well. 

Vernon was easy to read.

Petunia and Dudley, not so much. 

“You don’t have to make the decision now. We can give you time to decide”.

“No. I refuse,” Dudley said, shoulders squared and eyes boring into Harry’s. 

Vernon sputtered, meaty hands waving in the air in utter surprise at his son’s blatant refusal. “Dudders, what are you talking about? You want to remember  _ him? _ ”

Dudley turned towards his father, “yes. I do. He’s done nothing wrong. He did what he could to make sure we were protected. And he came to tell us that it was over himself. He didn’t have to. I mean, look at him. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, much less had a decent meal and yet he still came and talked to us.”

Harry was having some difficulty processing this. When had Dudley grown up and realized the world didn’t revolve around him?

“Vernon, I will not be forced to forget my sister. You can’t expect that of me,” Petunia said quietly. She looked ashen and tired, like this conversation was taking too much out of her. She looked at Harry, “I was never able to handle Lily’s life well. I was angry and I ruined our relationship as a result. I do not want to forget her.”

Vernon got up and exited the room, muttering to himself much as Harry remembers from his childhood. 

Harry turned towards his aunt and cousin, “I’m not coming back after this. If you’re sure you don’t want this then I’ll be gone and you’re not going to see me again”.

“Why not?” Dudley asked.

Harry took a deep breath, “you know why”. 

Dudley looked away, a look of hurt on his face, “I want to be better, Harry. I’m sorry, really I am”.

“I know you are Dudley. But, it doesn’t change what happened in the past. There’s just too much. I need to be able to move forward with my life now. Voldemort’s gone. I can live a normal life now and that's all I want. I just want to be Harry”. 

Petunia smiled at him, the first smile she had ever directed at him, “then go be just Harry”. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated greatly. You can follow me on Tumblr at [aninconsistentwriter](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aninconsistentwriter)


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